Living a Good Life: The Rhythm of Worship, Part 2

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Did God require a different kind of worship in the Old Testament than in the New? What does true worship look like? What does it mean to worship God? And what foolish pitfalls must we watch for as we cultivate a rhythm of worship? These are questions that Pastor Rich answers from Ecclesiastes 5, 1-7 in this sermon series titled Living a Good Life, Making Sense of the Journey. If you'd like to hear more messages from this series, you can go to www.delightingrace.com.

Let's listen in. This is the second part of a sermon on Ecclesiastes 5, 1-7. It was first preached at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem on April 22, 2018. A man going around the block. He's on his way to work and he really needs something to breakfast. He goes by Dunkin Donuts. Lord, there's no parking spaces around there. Lord, if you would just open up a parking space for me, I will give you glory this week.

And he goes around and never mind, Lord, a place just opened up. I mean, we can be that foolish. Foolish worship is contractual where we think we can make a deal with God. Foolish worship is also hasty, as it says there in verses 2 and 3. And it's not putting, when you enter, when you come into worship, you don't put much thought into it. A historic word here at Grace Bible Church is perfunctory. We don't want our worship to become perfunctory. In other words, just going through it in a mechanical sense.

I like to stir the pot every once in a while. But we're very selective in terms of not only what we preach, if we're accurate to the Word, we try to be accurate to the Word of God, but the things that we sing and how we sing them. We don't want our worship to be perfunctory. We don't want it to just become a mechanical thing where you're just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, going through the motions. That's not what worship is.

It's not just doing worship. God's got the stethoscope on the heart. Is your heart there?

You might be singing or saying or reading something with your mouth, but is your heart where your mouth is? We can be very hasty, not giving much thought, saying things you don't mean. And if that's the case, you might just be in the emotion of the moment and you might be making irrational decisions. And we see that reflected in verse 6. Let not your mouth lead you into sin and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. In other words, you've committed to doing this and then later on you go through thinking, well, you know, I really wasn't thinking through that. And you start getting into analysis paralysis, kind of like the Pharisees did when Jesus was talking to them about loving your neighbor as yourself. And they started analyzing. Yeah, but who's my neighbor? You see what they're doing there?

They're excusing themselves from obeying the scriptures, depending on how you define neighbor. Getting in the emotion of the moment or say or do or commit to something. And when you make that commitment, you're not actually thinking through it because you're just in the moment, but you're not actually thinking through it. And then you might make a commitment where in reality, that commitment has no connection to real life. And later on, you revisit that or somebody reminds you of that. You say, yeah, I really didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I've heard that a young woman coming forward to an invitation to receive Christ. It was a resounding presentation of the gospel when she came forward to receive Christ. And I invited her over to our house to establish a discipling relationship with her. And I said at the dinner table, so tell me about your decision Sunday night.

And she says, yeah, you know, I don't really know what happened Sunday night. What are we doing? The characteristic, a third characteristic of foolish worship is that it's self-preoccupied. It's self-preoccupied life plans and circumstances fill the mind, you know, and that leads to the contractual part of it.

But also I come in here and I do I go through the motions, but I'm still so preoccupied about life plans. And I'm distracted from actually worshipping or I'm coming in here to find God's endorsement for my plans. It's foolish worship is self-preoccupied. How is this serving me?

How is this making me feel? That's foolish worship. God is not impressed with the sacrifice of fools.

I told you we'd need to put our seat belts on today. The Lord's got a stethoscope on the heart, doesn't he? You see, God doesn't want the things we do for him. Are you listening to me? God doesn't want the things we do for him. I don't listen to the whole thing. Okay, I'm not done yet.

Don't let yourself get distracted. God doesn't just want the things we do for him. What is it that God wants? He wants you. He wants you. He wants all your heart and all your mind.

He wants you. So let's be very careful that we don't come in here and just engage in in doing worship. Meanwhile, our hearts and our minds are somewhere else. What we do in here is completely detached from what we do outside of these walls. And when we leave these walls, let's make sure that the things that we do are not utterly detached from what we have gained in here. Worship is not relegated to this.

It's not limited to this place. We worship throughout the course of the week and when we come together, then we worship with each other. What are the outcomes of foolish worship?

We go through these quickly. Verse 1 says very clearly, we're doing evil. Because we start engaging in behavior that is not informed by God's self-disclosure and we're giving glory to self and not God. That's the result of foolish worship. Also, God has no pleasure in it.

I've said that before. Proverbs 21, 3. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. You see, God cares about the heart.

He's got that stethoscope on the heart. And Jesus quoted Isaiah 29, 13. Isaiah 29, 13.

People draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. You see, that doesn't impress God at all. In fact, this sort of thing is an affront to the holiness of God. It is odious to Him.

And we see that a lot in the Minor Prophets where God says, Take it away. I don't want it. I don't want you just going through the motions. I don't want you to come and just do worship. Meanwhile, your hearts, your treasure is somewhere else.

I don't want that. It is odious to God. In fact, it becomes useless. Look at verse 6 with me again. Let not your mouth lead you into sin and do not say for the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? What you commit to, whatever commitment you may make or something, maybe it will become a useless thing. In fact, God may take away from you what you actually trust.

Because He knows you are not trusting Him. He knows He is not the treasure of your heart. God may take away what truly is the treasure of your heart just to get your attention. But also, foolish worship is empty. That is what it says in verse 7. Dreams increase and words grow many. There is vanity. But God is the one you must fear.

There is vanity. It is empty. It is void of substance. It is meaningless.

In other words, it is irrelevant. Our worship can become irrelevant. Why do you think so many people are just leaving church? Because they don't see a connection between church and their lives.

Far too many people are in that category today. God doesn't work for me. That is because they have been far too involved in the sacrifice of fools. There are two aspects of worship that we need to consider from this text. Two aspects of worship and I mentioned it already before at the beginning. Deuteronomy 5-27 says, Speak to us all the Lord, all that the Lord our God will speak to you and we will hear and do it. That is the two aspects of worship.

We will hear and do it. And the two aspects of worship go very much in line with the two words that are translated to worship in Greek in the New Testament. The first aspect of worship is sensing God.

And the Greek word that correlates with that is proskuneo. That is draw near to listen. We hear God and we hear from beyond the sun because we are under the sun. But God is beyond the sun and we need to hear from God. You need to hear from God. I need to hear from God. I need a heart attentive to God.

Why? Because that alone is the antidote for self preoccupation. And so worship is about a heart attentive to God.

Not just in here but outside these walls as well. So what does it mean to listen, to draw near, to listen to God? I am going to quote David Gibson here.

He does a very good job with this. The orientation to perfect wholeness as an undivided worshiper starts here. Listening to God.

Here is what it looks like. You get what God says in through your ears and lodged in your mental processes and immovably part of who you are as a person. Let his truth seep into the way you look at the world.

It is a very good statement. And so again as the truth is coming in, as you are engaging the word of God and hopefully this isn't the only place you do that. But as you are listening to hear the authoritative presentation of the word of God, are you engaging the word of God? God has got his stethoscope up to your heart right now and he is listening.

What is going on in there? Is there so much noise that you can't absorb the truth of the word of God? Let's be careful that that doesn't become reality. You need reference from beyond the sun because we live under the sun. And if we don't have reference from beyond the sun, we will end up with the same kind of despair that we see described in Ecclesiastes. We need a word from God. And there is a difference between one who is a student and one who just attends the lectures.

There is a difference. And God's self-disclosure as I have said many times is given to us not just for our information but for our transformation. And so when we come to the word of God in here or when you come to the word of God when you are at home, if you do it in the morning, in the middle of the day or in the evening, when you approach the word of God, disclose yourself to me to the degree that it changes my life, that it informs my heart and mind and alters my course of action. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in Him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on Weekdays at 10 a.m.